Nathaniel Hawthorne And American Literary Market In The Mid-Nineteenth Century

Nathaniel Hawthorne lived in an age when American capitalist economy quickly developed and social structure underwent significant changes.During this time,American national literature flourished and a new type of relationship between writers and the literary market began to take shape.The time when writers were patronized by aristocrats was gone.Instead,authorship became a profession and professional writers directly wrote for the reading public.Hawthorne entered into the literary market in the year 1828 when he published his first work Fanshawe,but his literary status was finally set up in 1850 with the publication of The Scarlet Letter.During those years,Hawthorne was devoted to literary creation and strived for publishing opportunities.He had a profound understanding of the hardship in publishing and making a name in the market.Hawthorne's attitude towards the literary market was ambivalent.On the one hand,he wished to make a living by writing and win the acceptance of readers in the marketplace;on the other hand,he hated the idea of seeing literary works as commodities and was dissatisfied with the fact that literary works had to yield to readers' expectation and market rules.However,he actually couldn't resist the temptation of the literary market because of poverty and the wish to be accepted by readers.Therefore,in order to become successful artistically and commercially,he adopted a series of strategies,including creating a marketable public persona and setting up good relationships with publishers.Most important of all,Hawthorne chose "romance" as a strategy for the literary market,establishing "a neutral territory between the imaginary and the actual." By doing so,he maintained freedom in creation and catered to the expectation of the reading public.These strategies were Hawthorne's compromise and confrontation in the mid-nineteenth century literary market,ensuring him to keep a balance between art and market.